According to the latest Scottish Health Survey results, seven in ten adults participated in some form of gambling in the previous twelve months and 11% took part in at least four different types of gambling. Lisa Rutherford discusses problem gambling as a public health issue in Scotland.

It’s festival time in Edinburgh! The ScotCen team enjoyed a day out last week, when we went to see the fringe show, “Still Life Dreaming”. Inspired by the Lothian Birth Cohort, this play was one of a series of innovative dissemination works based on medial research, put on by the Wellcome Trust as part of their 75th birthday celebrations.

This month's World Breastfeeding Week focused on communication as one of its key themes, and Louise Marryat knows this only too well, having spoken to young mothers through our evaluation of the Family Nurse Partnership programme in Scotland. Here she explains more.

Rachel Ormston asks: How does the wider public view same sex relationships and gay marriage? A ScotCen report published today uses data from the Scottish Social Attitudes survey to explore attitudes to different groups of people living in Scotland. The issues discussed are wide-ranging – and worth the read! However, it’s particularly striking how far public opinion has moved on same sex relationships over a pretty short period of time. Simlply put, attitudes have become far more liberal.

Lisa Given talks about her attendance at the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) biannual conference in Lausanne. ESRA was set up to promote communication between survey researchers across Europe with a vision to improve the quality of substantive research and survey methodology in the social sciences.

Last week saw Mend’s second annual National Childhood Obesity Week - to raise awareness of the dangers of being above a healthy weight in childhood. Scotland has one of the worst obesity records amongst developed countries. An NHS Scotland HEAT target was established in 2008/09 to deliver more than 6,300 child healthy weight interventions by March 2011, but to what extent are these initiatives having an impact on child obesity? Louise Marryat suggests that our Scottish Health Survey can help answer the question.

Today sees the publication of four new reports from the Growing Up in Scotland study (GUS), a longitudinal research project which is tracking the lives of around 14,000 children currently being born in Scotland or born in the last 10 years. GUS is one of a limited, but ever-growing number of large-scale longitudinal cohort studies being run in the UK, and the world. Paul Bradshaw cites Robert Owen's core belief in the value of education and the effect of early experience on later outcomes to further his sentiments on the vital importance of longitudinal research.

Given the relentless media focus on cabinet ministers squabbling over the Alternative Vote referendum, some voters in England could perhaps be forgiven for not entirely realising that voters in the devolved Nations are electing their own administrations tomorrow. In Scotland, it will be the fourth election to the Scottish Parliament since devolution. Most polls are now suggesting the Scottish National Party has surged, and will again emerge as the largest single party. So does this indicate strong Scottish support for independence in Scotland? Here Chief Executive Penny Young draws on the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey that our colleagues in the Scottish Centre for Social Research have been producing since 1999.

It's National Marriage Week and Iain Duncan Smith marked it with a speech celebrating the virtues of marriage. What would he make of our latest research on attitudes to marriage north of the border? Rachel Ormston shared the latest findings from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey at the Institute of Government yesterday. Here Chief Executive Penny Young reviews our findings within the context of IDS's speech.